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tv   [untitled]    October 4, 2012 12:30am-1:00am PDT

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dependent on san francisco to address a significant part of the region's growth and transportation challenge. so, we need to determine how to manage these 400,000 plus new daily auto trips. we know that there is not much low-hanging fruit. everything involves a trade-off. and that we need to do things differently to meet this challenge. we know that also that a lot of the growth in san francisco is going to happen in the city's core, the soma, the mission bay, and new auto trends in neighborhoods are going to counteract our efforts to improve new travel times, [speaker not understood]. we know that it's going to take new ways of doing things, such as leveraging the private sector investment, between the core and the south bay.
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[speaker not understood]. where do we put new capacity and how much new capacity, and how much reallocating right away is it going to take. we analyze that it would take to actually achieve some of significant goals, so, in addition to just making sure we don't fall subject to those low speeds on the previous slide, we also have significant goals beyond just not letting our system deteriorate. so, we looked at what it would take to, for instance, reach a higher average level of repair for our transit system, capital transit system and for our roads. we look at what it would take to achieve a nonauto load share of 50%. a transit first goal. we looked at the city's -- and this was the climate action plan in conjunction with the climate action plan process
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what it would take to achieve the greenhouse gas emission reduction goal, the transportation sector of that, all while trying to maintain competitiveness for attracting jobs and employees. this is an example. if the findings from the climate action plan being worked on in conjunction with the city, you can see that the amount of new infrastructure and level of demand management that it would take to get close to our goals is really not to be underestimated. so, with these goals and needs in mind, we conducted two calls for projects last year. one of them was in conjunction with the regional transportation plan called for projects, it was mentioned earlier. we got submissions, priorities from all of our partner agencies, all of our agencies that operator provide services [speaker not understood] in san francisco as well as from the
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public. and a lot of what the public is calling for is that we call programmatic types of investments, traffic calming, pedestrian safety, improved bicycle safety rather than major capital projects although there were requests for those, too. as far as the major capital investments go, san francisco has done a great job establishing our priorities as regional priorities. so, this process has been conducted in parallel with the regional project evaluation process. and mtc, the metropolitan transportation commission, adopted projects performance evaluation findings last year. and san francisco project 5 was the top 10. so, we have our priorities in place at the regional level and now we -- our challenge is to deliver them. i point out, for instance, caltrain. [speaker not understood], a
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significant achievement being identified at the regional level as a transit expansion priority. we expect to have a little over $64 billion available for transportation in san francisco through 20 40. now, 80% of that is going to be dedicated just to operate and maintain the existing service levels that we have today. the existing state of pavement, the existing levels of transit service. and that even doesn't quite maintain our state of good repair level. so, we have already a lot of many committed -- it takes a lot just to keep what we have going. in addition, we have commitments to baseline projects which i'll describe in just a minute. after those commitments we already have made, we have $3
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billion left to cover all of our other needs. this is our -- these are the commitments that we've made already to the transportation system over the next 30 years, and there's a lot of very significant investments here, especially in our downtown in the corridor. we point out the transit center, the downtown extension [speaker not understood], and caltrain, a significant inclusion in the region transit expansion policy. another significant achievement here is the high-speed rail which was signed last year, part of the regional priority planning process. so, our baseline is significant, but then we have all of these other needs. we'll have $3 billion to try to address them. our question now is how do we prioritize among all of the needs. service expansion, additional service to address growth, to raise the level of repair of
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our roads, the programmatic improvements that the public is so interested in, the traffic calming, the pedestrian safety, the transportation enhancement types of investments, our expansion projects, increasing the capacity of our system to carry new trips. we are concluding a similar project evaluation process being conducted at the regional level that focus on san francisco projects. we will come back to you in future months with the results of this project performance evaluation. the purpose of this is to help aid in the prioritization process. the next step is to take the identified needs for state of good repair, the needs that we have, also what it would take to increase state of good repair levels, the needs and projected from there, investments in programs, and these to elks which are
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evaluated for performance and put those together into alternative financially constrained investment packages. * projects through 2030 as well as one or more vision scenarios. so, what would we invest in beyond the revenue. we are planning to start a significant round of outreach this fall, actually starting this week. in october we have events planned for every district. and thank you to your aides who have helped advise us on how to best reach out to your district. we have some information on the screen about how to find more information, sfgta.org, move smart sf.com are two websites you can go to for more information. and the phone number is 5 93-16 70. * we will be back in future months with more updates,
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including a discussion of the policy contacts or strategic initiatives that are needed on the institutional side to help support the direct investment in our system. what do we need? in addition to those investments, what kinds of policy changes are needed to go along to help make the best use of those? thank you. >> colleagues, before we take up any questions, i did want to ask our executive director if he can talk a little bit more about the outreach and efforts that you're taking to make sure that it's done in a culturally sensitive way, and that we're reaching the diverse populations in the most effective way possible. >> mr. chairman, i just got done proving the spanish in the notices. i want to make sure it is [speaker not understood]. we are reaching out to a vast
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number of community organizations. we are advertising in several languages. we have materials actually on our website that are accessible in essentially multi-cultural setting. i think that the analysis and the outreach needs to go beyond that to a deeper understanding of how people use the transportation system, who are the users of transit, and how walking or biking or accessing things, basic things like schools and [speaker not understood] happens differently in different neighborhoods depending on the social stratification of the city. we are keenly aware of that and making sure that community relations are aware and involved in the process of reaching out into the community. that is in addition to inviting all of our city agency partners as well as the regional
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partners because one thing that is -- remains very true, whether it's for planning long-term or for prioritizing funds shorter term is that we are not just dealing with local agencies. we're also dealing with a number, at least five or six transit carriers regionally as well as other actors in the regional sphere, including all of our adjacent counties, and that all of them need to be involved in helping us put together a prioritized picture. >> thank you. commissioner olague? >> yes, thank you for your question. i know that in -- sometimes we get some feedback from people in the community that the outreach is kind of limited to bus stops and though sort of things. so, with we would like if you can work with our office more so we can make sure certain community-based organizations are informed and that sort of thing.
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>> commissioner olague, we would be delighted to do that. >> that would be great. >> i think a notice from your office, a newsletter or someone else can say a lot of ways getting the community focused on this. they get a lot of notices from us. so, by all means we'll work with your office. >> okay, that would be great. rachel, i forget your last name. i'm sorry. high at. i wanted to thank you for your report. i have a quick question. * hyatt i think you answered some of these at the last hearing that we had and that was about the congestion pricing that is going to be sort of a pilot program, i believe, at treasure island. if you could tell me a little bit more about when that would be started , some of the issues that are coming up. i know that there is an idea that's obviously been floating out there numerous years. i've gone to several workshops in the library and everything on this one subject.
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i know in europe obviously it's been in play in stockholm and london and other major cities. but in san francisco it seems that there's been a lot of push back, political push back from downtown interests. and i'm just wondering where are they with this pilot -- where are the politics in all of this? i think that's the only thing that's been holding this up. >> if we can get the mic. >> yes, thanks for the question. we do owe you an update. we're happy to brief you as well as the plans and programs or finance committee if they are interested. we have two initiatives in this area, one being the treasure island transportation program, which the treasure island development program asked us to help them deliver the transportation piece of that plan. we're doing it right now along with the coordination from mta and other agencies that would be required to implement this
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program that our director described is comprehensive and multi-modal in nature. and is drawing from the power of the robust sort of combination of parking pricing, road pricing, and the transit path at the unit level for that plan. the other initiative is the downtown work that you referred to, which was a follow on to our mobility access and pricing study back in 2010. we've gone ahead and gotten the federal government grant for this work to do parking pricing and regulation and that's going to be looking at parking-based options to reduce car travel to the downtown area to address the core issues, the core traffic congestion issues that rachel described earlier. that is getting going. we have local match and regional match for that project and both of these projects performed excellently, top two projects in the region in the recent rtp project assessment. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> and then one other question. >> hold on.
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mr. moskovich, you had something to add to that? >> commissioner olague, i appreciate the question. the perspective i have, the treasure island pricing aspect is just one aspect of the package that was put together to enable that reuse plan to be successful. and we are happy to collaborate with the mayor's office to make that happen and show that it can happen in a very organized and progressive way. and very effective way. but obviously we're talking about a very specific situation where there is only one access point which is the bridge. >> right. >> and very, very compelling need, not just from the city's perspective, but from the regional perspective to not adversely affect the operations of the bridge which carries
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250,000 trips a day. and, so, in and out of the island is part of the metering process and part of the thinking about discouraging driving as much as possible and also providing as he said, a robust mix of other options for people to get in and out of the island. it's parking pricing, and service needed for ferries and muni to reach the island and so on. that's a process that is underway and will be iterating essentially what the pages of development that happened on the island. >> that's what i was wondering. >> as it is needed. you asked that question. i wanted to clarify. that's something i think was an ideal environment for these concepts. it is limited to that geographic area. and i believe firmly that it would be very successful because it would be done with a lot of thoughtful application
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of these concepts. it won't be with a sledge hammer. >> right. >> on the issue of congestion pricing, there is a larger policy. what i will tell you is this. the environment that we had when we did the mobility and pricing study was such that in addition to hitting a major recession, which is not a great time to be having a conversation about charging anybody more for anything -- >> right. >> we also i believe did not have the region prepared for this. and that is a situation that we often have. we in san francisco tend to lead the charge on ideas that then take some time to mature in the region. the region is also coming along. the region has already, since we did our study, implemented some form of pricing on the bay bridge, for example. where there is a larger charge. i think we are moving in that direction. the technology is improving in terms of collection and detection and follow through and so on.
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and we've also been learning from the experiences of the cities that you mentioned, especially stockholm and london which have not repealed their congestion pricing programs. in fact, found them to be effective in providing funding for transit and alternatives for people who want other alternatives. so, i think this is an item that will continue to be in discussion. we have continued to keep the follow through of the study alive. and i believe that administration, the next administration will be faced with this issue at the federal level simply because we don't see in the transportation community agreement on an increase in the gas tax, the federal gas tax. but there is a clear need, as you saw in the plan, for new revenue. so, we picked up a new revenue, it's going to be user based. whether it's congestion pricing, whether it's vehicle miles per traveled tax, the same way that the insurance
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picture is going. you know, you pay for what you use. so, we think this is something that we need to stay ahead of because when the moment comes for these programs to be implemented subregionally or regionally, the city needs to have a clear picture what it wants to do, what the priority investment strategy should be with those revenues and how it wants to mode the way people use the system. we're still involved, but we are at an in between place where we're waiting for national/regional to catch up with us. >> thank you for that. >> commissioner olague, did you have any other question? >> yes, van ness vrt funding. >> vrt project i think is doing great in terms of having our locally preferred alternative identified and the federal transit administration has already given us -- given mta, in fact, $15 million pre-investment to fund the conceptual engineering for that and detailed engineering for
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that project. we're on track to hopefully receive the full 75 million as soon as our environmental is completed and we develop that plan for delivering the project. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. commissioner avalos. >> thank you, chair campos. just a couple comments and perhaps suggestions as well. i think it's really important as we're looking forward to finalizing the transportation plan we look at equity in san francisco and look at communities and neighborhoods in san francisco that heretofore have not received really a fair share of funds for infrastructure, for transit and other form of transportation as well. i live in a district that is clearly beset by a real lack of funding. balboa park station is a place that needs enormous investment just to make it functional. and it's really not, although people use it every day, thousands of people. i'm looking at the map on page
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4. it has the areas of expected growth and new housing units. 1800 planned around balboa park. i would expect that's not just in that little box area that's there, but surrounding area. in the past 10 years in district 11 we have had 6,000 new residents come in. so, there's growth that's happening. that isn't measured here in what we're projecting for the next, you know, 20 years. that i think is really something we have to take in consideration as we're planning. now, these numbers come from the regional level. we have to look at the reality of the local level as well. what does that mean in terms of our transportation plan? we have to make sure our transportation plan is actually put in place, the need to really up lift neighborhoods that don't have the infrastructure that we need. when you have fewer choices and you have to get somewhere and you have a car, you're going to get in your car because that's the only choice you have. and i think we have to be really cognizant of that,
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moving forward how we can as a city support neighborhoods like the ones in district 11, district 10 and the outlying districts, district 7 and in 4 that have fewer options for transit. just want to make sure that we're moving forward, we take that into consideration and how that could be -- so it's really a part of transportation plan for the city. >> thank you, commissioner avalos. that's an excellent point and we'll make sure we continue to look at that. commissioner wiener. >> thank you very much. and i just want to follow-up on commissioner avalos's point. i do think equity is important and i'm glad that commissioner avalos mentioned accretion of new housing because density equity is also important. and i do believe a transit investment should be tied to a community's willingness to accept increased density and i can say in the south and southeast we are experiencing
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housing growth in market octavia. we're having thousands and thousands of new units through an area, market street, that's poorly served with transit. so, i do believe a density equity needs to play a role because there are parts of the city that are more willing than others to accept density in areas where you can put new housing with more of a fight or less of a fight, or even with open arms. so, i agree. >> yes, mr. moskovich. >> if i may, to the comments from both commissioner avalos and commissioner wiener, the fortunate thing is that the structure in which we are operating -- because this plan essentially feeds into regional transportation plan in the next cycle, is such that the region is already requiring us to take into account these things
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because the regional investment strategy is also based on investing where the density is going to be. i mean, considering the very significant numbers of people that are going to be coming into the bay area in the next 30 years and the significant numbers of people -- of new jobs, there is no other choice. the bang for the buck needs to be there. so, that's a huge consideration that supports essentially both of your assertions. but the other thing that i think is fundamental to understand is that the challenge, as i think rachel alluded to in a couple of the slides, is that we need to ramp up to be able to deliver real choices for people to travel which we're talking about commissioner avalos, people not having the option to drive, or needing to get on the bus. we really have a huge challenge coming up in the next [speaker not understood] to assure people the acceptance of density will come coupled with tangible improvements in transit service, in other
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options so they don't have to be worried either about having to buy a car and drive, or if they are over the driving, the whole business of parking and where the parking will become a jungle in the city and the neighborhoods, you know, because of the influx of new people. so, those are really critical issues for us. and one of the key ones is, of course, what are we going to be able to actually put in place in the next decade, two decades to keep pace with the public that supports these plans. >> commissioner avalos. >> i just want to be really clear about how i talk about density. in my district, what i'm seeing in my district is we don't have a new development that's happened in district 11. we have a couple housing sites here and there, no more than maybe 12 units that have gone up in each site. most of them are under 12 units. but we have 6,000 new residents are there that weren't there in 2000, which is a huge increase in density in the neighborhood, not being measured necessarily
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by the city in terms of its housing goals. not being measured by the regional level as well. and the reality is we have to figure out how to build a transportation system that also, you know, recognizes that density in a different way than we recognize it in other parts of san francisco where we are seeing housing that's being developed in greater amounts. i think that's a challenge that we have to face and we have to go with open eyes knowing the reality of certain neighborhoods in the city. >> thank you. commissioner kim. >> i just wanted to appreciate commissioner avalos' comments. we are seeing that growth throughout the city. i do want to speak to some of the frustration i hear from residents that are moving into kind of our newer emerging growing residential neighborhood where we are seeing very escalated density. and i think there is a lot of concern about a promise of a public transit infrastructure that people feel like the commitment to transit first neighborhood is not really being fulfilled in their neighborhoods. and i hear this a lot in south beach and in mission bay and in
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the south of market. i think last week a lost of us experienced the disaster that was several major city-wide events going on, moscone and city hall, people taking 40, 45 minutes to get from one end of south of market to the other which is a small area of the city of san francisco. and i saw lots of people waiting for buses because the buses couldn't get through on second and on mission street. and i think that as we talk about a potential warrior's arena moving in next to the giants' stadium, our neighborhoods have a lot of concerns about whether the city really does have both the revenue and the plan to mitigate for this kind of density. not just residential, but, of course, people being attracted to neighborhoods with major city events and what our public infrastructure is going to look like that follows that. so, i just wanted to kind of add that thought in as well. >> thank you, commissioner kim. commissioner wiener. >> thank you.
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and i think also part of this has to do with the way the mta addresses its infrastructure. right now the market street subway is -- it's just -- it's a huge problem. this carries such an enormous mood from the ocean all the way east and the subway is just consistently -- it's consistently a problem. with crowded cars, not enough vehicles in the system, with the fact that we're going to be adding thousands and thousands of new residents, whether it's in south of market and the civic center, market and octavia area, and this subway is absolutely incapable of carrying the load that we have today, let alone thousands of new ones. it's been a significant frustration for me, for example, that we have a
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significant number of our lrbs that are out of service, that they were in an accident, they've broken down. some of them have been out of service 10 years or more and muni -- and i think that the current management of muni is terrific and i think they understand this and are working on it. to me it's outrageous that we've had lrvs that have been out of service for, some of them 10 or 12 years, that we haven't gotten it together until very recently to even bother fixing these. and the fact that now that we are, they're coming back one at a time. and i know this is really hard and it requires funding, bull to me that's the basics of running a transportation system. and if we don't get that together and then go above and beyond it, we're going to have a real problem in our transit system. and i think that we need to be very cognizant of those kind of nuts and bolts transit issues as we see this increasing population and where we prioritize our investment. >> thank you. i appreciate everyone's
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comments and a very substantive and interesting discussion. why don't we open it up to public comment. any member of the public who would like to speak on this item, please come forward. seeing none, public comment is closed. and again, i know there will be a number of community meetings that will be taking place and we look forward to continuing to engage not only this board but other agencies in the entire community in this discussion. and again, thank you to the executive director and his staff for the excellent presentation. if you can please call item number 13, please. >> item 13, update on authority projects in districts 5 and 7. this is an information item. >> thank you. and now we're going back to prior presentations that we've had on specific projects in districts throughout the city, and this is an opportunity to hear about what's happening in districts 5 and 7. and not only for the benefit of those of us who are here today, but also anyone who is watching, especially folks who live in that district and